Journalism Dead due to Cultural Misogyny Or PR Collusion?

A veteran news anchor and a game journalist talk about the integrity of the craft, cite some major problems for you to contribute.

A competing feminist hopes to capitalize on the success of other provocateurs by citing 2 studies, making casual links through behaviour that is NOT valid and deeply patronizing those that MIGHT want more from the flashing lights they know and love. Incorrect

Neither. I would think the rise of youtube and informal video formats to gain information about games has exceeded the amount of content a game site can produce or divulge.

@Minishdriveby: Interesting premise- expand?

Round 6,000 lolol

Ding ding

Yeah, I agree. There are so many sources to turn to and they're all free of charge. As a result, any form of journalistic integrity is immediately compromised if a website has to rely on dedicated advertisement. If you can't operate independently you have to deal with conflicts of interest and constant audience suspicion. Also, publishers and developers leave very little room for in-depth journalism. They dictate what news comes out and you can find that stuff everywhere.

One could argue that if it wasn't for the fact that gaming websites are often the first to gain access to new (and more hands-on) content about videogames they'd be pretty much irrelevant. When it comes to journalism, that is. They can still keep themselves alive by providing entertainment.

Whiteknights vs GJ

current score:

You decide

Game Journalism thrived pre-internet through magazines where a publisher/writer relationship controlled the output. Pre-2005 and a little bit after journalism was still the prominent way to disseminate information, and while more people could enter the field with start-up websites, it's nothing like the instant video posts of youtube/twitch. Currently, the largest youtube channel is a video game channel; there is a huge market. The success of that channel has caused a myriad of other channels to open. The flood of information, let's plays, user reviews, leaked videos, etc. far exceeds the amount any one website can put up or is able to put up (a website may be asked to removed leaked material before a certain date). There is so much information created by people who are doing the journalists job for free (at least initially) that it's diluted the market for critics paid by a mother company, causing instability in a probably are unstable job field. The lack of need for a news site has caused the shift from faceless authors driven sites to personality driven sites to keep up with the times.

@Minishdriveby: Different schools of thought.....

Editorialization of the "news" is a matter of perspective. Getting information out quickly "This is a release date for this" is absolutely a seamless operation, but the need for real journalists to take it a step further, pushing with the information they have- while exhibiting a cogent personality? That's ALWAYS could coverage, no matter what field you're in.

I would say the "noise of news" doesn't eliminate the need for good journalists...it heightens it

Misogyny has lost so much of it's impact over the last several years.

Back in my day, misogyny was defined as a genuine hatred towards women and usually acted upon through violence and abuse of them (usually physically and emotionally and usually by someone they knew) and subjugating them as second-class citizens "beneath men".

Now it's this catch-all term used by "feminists" to shut people up who don't share their opinion about things... when in fact, a lot of "feminists" these days tend to be themselves misandrists and hate men.

I dunno about you guys but I've almost entirely stopped reading videogame websites. I see the headlines on Feedly and there's almost nothing interesting being put out there. At the moment the only site I'm actually visiting for the news (and not the comments sections) is Gematsu (normally the fastest with JP-EN news).

Whatever cachet videogame writers have has been lost. I just see all the sites as no different from blogs... in fact they're worse than blogs because at least with a blog people don't write about things they have no opinion on.

Whiteknights 0 GJ 1

But how many people actually feel that heightened need? I mean, a lot of people complain about gaming journalism, but are they willing to invest in more independent journalism?

You can expect that from ANYTHING that is Corporate Sponsored

Has it now?

I'm sure gamers like Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Mattie Brice - WOMEN who dare to play GAMES, who have the audacity to COMMENT on said games, and for this very reason routinely are at the receiving end of the vilest abuse - would beg to differ.

Ahaha. This post is actually hilariously confused. He's clearly talking about what the term means to many people and he's right

Case in point: The term "misogyny" referring to that kind of abuse is actually no longer the first thing that comes to mind when many people hear the word "misogyny". It's the same with racism, sexism and so on. All terms that have been devalued and stripped of their powerful connotations because their application has become so broad and overused.

Simply saying something is "racist" or "misogynist" doesn't automatically elicit shock responses anymore. Increasingly people's responses to this kind of labelling (which comes about from overanalysing the minatiae of an exchange) is "...and?". The problem with people who give that response isn't that they are racist/sexist or what have you, it's that the use of the term has become meaningless to the point of describing things that are barely a note above benign.

Years of overanalysing and overly grandiose use of terms such as misogyny have led to a crying wolf effect where people just don't give a toss anymore when they hear them. Food for thought for those that recklessly bandy around these words that originally had a terrible, weightyness to them as if they weighed nothing at all.

I've never used the term "racist" to describe someone in my entire life. Not because I couldn't. But because I understand what the word means and why racism is terrible. I can't bring myself to use it lightly.

did I see confused

GJ 2 zip trololoolololol

@Ricardo41: I would respond but @Articuno76 already stole my rebuttal.

The term "misogyny" used to mean a man who had a legitimate hatred of women and viewed them as mere objects and something to be scorned and controlled. They were seen as less-than-human animals who existed purely to serve their husbands in the household and bear/raise their children.

We now live in a society where women have the right to work, right to vote, and right to live on their own. "Sexism" is all but dead (in the first world at least), except in the eyes of misandrist women who believe that all men are out to subjugate them by not giving them special treatment, because they are women.

In fact, they consider their own opinions to be 100% factually true and any dissenting opinion to be entirely wrong and abusive. Modern extremist feminists are a massively tiny minority that is hugely vocal about their views. And that is unfortunate, as they can easily gain a following amongst normal women who view their rants on the internet. It's almost becoming like Islamic extremism in places like France and the UK.

@foxhound_fox:

@foxhound_fox: noooooooooooooice

You don't need a paid middleman website reiterating the release date in an age where publishers can post a trailer directly to youtube and have a million unpaid youtube personalities talk about said release date. There's a reason game journalism doesn't carry with it a title of job security. There's not much room for investigative journalism in this industry either.

The rise of website personalities are therefore the consequence and response to the need to differentiate a site and postpone extinction, especially during a time where news is disseminated by companies without little effort and you have an exponential growth in the number of start up sites wanting to reiterate the same news.

@Minishdriveby: skimmed or whatever and just focusing on your use of the word youtube.

A million likes on facebook is nothing compared to one dollar.

Yeah crappy forgot exact words, but the gist of whatever she said was that social media does not properly represent value since it inherently attacks different objectives. Social media is primarily used to communicate with your viewers. It is not meant to extract value from you; what many gaming websites (nearly all really) are trying to do. Gamespots goal isn't to just inform you and realistically speaking that comes second. Comparing a social media tool like youtube to a gaming website whose primary purpose is to generate revenue is well folly. The two mediums are not the same despite the similar outcomes both may achieve. That means exceptions exist, but in most cases youtube and most social media is garbage as rarely if ever do they zone in on the target market or influence monetary purchases.

And youtube users are not generating revenue? PewDiePie, a popular--19+ million subcriber--youtuber, despite the quality of his videos makes 4 Million a year from youtube videos; however, making the assumption that youtube is only used to connect/communicate with viewers and that there is no profit margin involved, Youtube's influence on journalistic websites cannot be ignored. The rise of youtube's popularity and personality driven content has further splintered pockets of revenue from game sites, and these sites have had to adapt the way they relay news to stay relevant and continue to be profitable.

You might think that social media and game websites, like gamespot, have different goals, and while that's debatable, it does not mean that gamespot isn't in direct competition over viewership with youtube. If youtube can take away viewers from a site like gamespot then that becomes a problem for gamespot. Gamespot become irrelevant which leads to the death of game sites, i.e. the topic of the thread.

Personally, I think youtube has far greater infuence on monetary purchases than you give it credit for. Before I buy a game, I reference youtube on quality as more content, perspectives, and examples are offered than a game website.

@Minishdriveby:

Well yes and you would be surprised about how much money the majority of YouTube commentators make. Like I said exceptions exist, but exceptions are not the norm. People go to YouTube in order to speak to everyone and the mentality is to entertain first, not inform:

That's why Angryjoe has 1 million+ views on a bunch of videos and was purchased by Disney. His reviews are seen as TV episodes and are very gimmicky aka in the majority of his videos he is not reviewing the game at all. It explains why PewDiePie hardly if ever actually talks about games in an articulate manner as he is just a "bro". It explains why people like MundaneMatt just rants instead of having an inclusive discussion about games aka he only tells his viewers what they want to hear. It explains why ReviewTechUSA is narrow-minded in the sense he no longer plays console videogames and typically talks about the social behaviors that surrounds videogames instead of the game itself. It is why the gazillion of COD commentators never talk about COD at all. Lastly, YouTube increments video view counts after the first 5 seconds of play meaning its flawed. Fewer than 60% remain on average if the video exceeds 5 minutes.

Above is the stupidity and crap that you speak of when you refer to YouTube as a credible news source. Many emulate the above to achieve that same success and rightfully so many fail because YouTube can not differentiate viewers. Reason why Gamespot-IGN-Ars Technica still exist is because the need for a medium where the mentality is to generate revenue first and then inform is preferable. People looking to unwind can stay on YouTube and listen to all the gimmicks and bias rants they want. With YouTube videos it is near impossible to go into depth of any subject because long videos go against the entertainment formula. Long videos have low retention and as a result, the average length of a video is about 4 minutes or less for the sake of brevity.

"People go to YouTube in order to speak to everyone and the mentality is to entertain first, not inform, " and I think this is part of their success because through entertainment you can also inform. Despite whether their primary goal is to inform or entertain, the popularity of sites like youtube has caused traffic to decrease in other places, places that use to be the primary source for information, causing sites like GameSpot being forced to adapt to the changing "on-camera" personality climate.

I still disagree with you though, Youtube as a conglomerate of channels is better source of information than a game website could hope to be.